Our holdings include hundreds of glass and film negatives/transparencies that we've scanned ourselves; in addition, many other photos on this site were extracted from reference images (high-resolution tiffs) in the Library of Congress research archive. (To query the database click here.) They are adjusted, restored and reworked by your webmaster in accordance with his aesthetic sensibilities before being downsized and turned into the jpegs you see here. All of these images (including "derivative works") are protected by copyright laws of the United States and other jurisdictions and may not be sold, reproduced or otherwise used for commercial purposes without permission.

December 1941. B.F. Goodrich factory at Akron. "Treads for Army halftracks, fresh from the curing press of a large Ohio tire plant. Grooves are buffed on the ends of the track section." View full size. 4x5 nitrate negative by Alfred Palmer.

Alexandria, Va., 1861-69. "The Marshall house, King & Pitt Streets." Wet plate glass negative, right half of stereo pair. Photographer unknown. View full size. Who'll be the first to put this together with its companion image in a very short flipbook and post it to YouTube? Or it could be an animated gif. Either way, we'd have the world's earliest (and shortest) HD movie.

The 1930s posters done for the Works Progress Administration have proven to be especially popular in the Shorpy gift shop, so Juniper Gallery has started Vintagraph, a Web site dedicated to high-quality reproductions of this unique artwork on museum-grade French art paper. Favorites include the curiously popular Keep Your Teeth Clean as well as the heroically proportioned Don't Jay Walk. We're adding new posters every day at www.vintagraph.com.

October 1940. "Million Dollar Highway is cut through massive rocks in Ouray County, Colorado." U.S. 550 between Silverton and Ouray. Now a paved modern highway, this is a spectacular mountain route that I've driven many times over the years. View full size. 35mm Kodachrome transparency by Russell Lee.

October 1914. Anniston, Alabama. "Housing conditions at Adelaide Mill. The village is run down and greatly in need of sanitary improvements." Photograph and caption by Lewis Wickes Hine. View full size.

Shorpy.com | History in HD is a vintage photo blog featuring thousands of high-definition images from the 1850s to 1950s. The site is named after Shorpy Higginbotham, a teenage coal miner who lived 100 years ago.